Ahhh, dear readers, you've probably noticed that I've been gone for a *little* bit. Got a new job, bought a house, started travelling...in short, life got in the way.
But this weekend provided the perfect fodder for a relaunch of "The Dating Experience:" A Pimp.
Yes. A Pimp. A "Bitch-betta-have-my-money," "Hoe-sit-down," "Hit-the-stroll" pimp. Pimp.
This weekend I was in Las Vegas for the New Edition concert with two of my sorors and a girlfriend. (Side note, NE STILL got it! I Candy Rained, Stood the Rain, Mr. Telephone Manned, Poisoned it up for two solid hours, in flats, and still had sore feet. And, Bobby showed. If they come to your city, definitely go. But I digress) As my girlfriends and I walked toward the entrance of the concert, there stood before me what can aptly be described as a Hot Ass Mess (HAM). HAM, female, was wearing a cotton black catsuit (who makes cotton catsuits?). The form-fitting atrocity showed off her best feature--her hanging gut and incredibly saggy boobs--and those were her best assets. The catsuit looked as if a first-year at Hogwarts had taken six or seven paintbrushes, dipped them in different cans of colored paint, stood back, and shouted, "Expellarmius Paintus Maximus!" while splattering the paint all over the canvas of the suit. As if the paint weren't enough, the suit also had gold lame patches attaching straps across the back, which had been cut out, and large gold buttons adorning the front of the suit. And why stop there? HAM was wearing matching 4 inch heels. She was with her boyfriend, who looked, in comparison utterly nondescript. Easily 4 inches shorter, he wore slacks and a cream top (linen?) a hat and had a tiny ponytail.
HAM and boyfriend are directly in front of me and one of my sorors, Donna. So, we do the obvious--whisper about her.
"Girl, she looks a hot ass mess!" I whispered, lest HAM turned around and decided to go HAM on me.
"I know!" a loud whisper returns in my ear.
"Who leaves the house like that? And, why did her man let her leave the house like that?" I whisper back, while rolling my eyes in disgust.
This continues on for several seconds. Before you call me a hater, let me help you: I am. I hate to see black women look a hot ass mess. Especially because we don't have to.
When the concert is over, the four of us decide it's too early to go home, so we decide to hang out in Vegas for a bit. We meander over to one of the bars, but it's too loud and extremely full of people. So, we keep walking until we end up at one of the sports bar which is empty by comparison to the other establishments on a Saturday night.
The bar is quiet, filled only with older white couples (about 4-5) and us. The music is fairly low and there is ample seating. Perfect. We take a seat and Donna and I describing the outfit to the Cassandra and Sibil who had not seen it. At the end of my description, Cassandra looks up and asks, "is that it?" and points to a woman walking into the nearly empty bar with her boyfriend.
"Yes!" Donna and I agree in unison.
"It IS a hot ass mess!" Cassandra says, shaking her head.
HAM and boyfriend sit at the bar. I'm sitting facing the bar, so I'm facing their backs. My three girlfriends are facing me, and looking out onto the casino floor. HAM starts smoking a cigarette, and boyfriend orders himself a drink. They sit. A few minutes later, a gentleman bearing a striking resemblance to Bill Bellamy shows up and starts talking to boyfriend. My girls and I are split: is it Bellamy or not? We finally decide it's not Bellamy. After chopping it up for a few minutes to boyfriend, Bellamy walks to the other end of the bar and sits down. He orders a glass of yak and a beer, pulls out his cell phone, checks it, and starts feeding dollars into the mechanical poker game at the bar.
I'm looking at all three of these characters because something just isn't right. I can't seem to figure out what it is, but I have a very strong, unsettling feeling that something is amiss. Boyfriend sashays down to Bellamy. And it hit me. Boyfriend--henceforth and forever more known as $ugar--is a pimp. I don't know how I knew he's a pimp. I just knew. I saw it as clearly as I see the DSW clearance tags and I knew it with the same conviction that I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. So, I announce my revelation to my friends, "Oh my God. He's a pimp."
They laugh at me.
I repeat myself, "He's a pimp."
The resounding replies are "No, he's not" and "How do you know?"
I knew because of a few key things. The oddities hit me. Oddity One: Sugar is with Ca$xmere (previously known as HAM), but he is not with Ca$xmere. He is barely talking to her. There are no subtle gestures of affection, no small touches on the back, no gentle strokes on the arm. Their body language is not of that of two people who are initimate. It's cold. Oddity Two: Bill Bellamy spoke only to $ugar, never once acknowledging Ca$xmere's existence. Oddity Three: These characters (and yes, I'm stereotyping here. Just because something's a stereotype doesn't mean it's not true. ) are in the empty sports bar with older white couples when there is a booming hip hop bar 200 feet away. They don't fit.
So I try to explain this to my friends. They keep laughing.
A few minutes go by, and I continue to keep tabs on the situation at the bar. $ugar and Ca$xmere leave the bar and I lose sight of them. I keep talking to my friends. After maybe three minutes, Donna says, "Oh. My. God You're right. He is a pimp."
"What's going on? " I ask, as I swivel my body toward the casino floor.
Ca$xmere is about 100 feet away from the bar, posturing in the middle of a very busy walkway, showing off her worn-and-weathered wares. $ugar is maybe 50 feet away from her, watching her. I'm watching him watch her. Two guys walk by Ca$xmere and she catches their eye. She reposes. They walk away, but maintain eyecontact with her. She reposes again. They come back. They talk for a minute, then she walks off with the two of them while $ugar follows. It is clear what is happening.
I return to my friends, smugly satisfied.
"I bet the other guy's a pimp, too." I say.
They laugh again.
"Think about it. I'm a teacher. Know who I hang out with? Teachers. My friends who are lawyers hang out with lawyers. Pimps hang out with pimps" I say, emphatically.
We continue to talk, debating the liklihood of there being two pimps in the bar with us.
As we're debating, two more young black guys (early-to-mid twenties) enter the bar. They're together, but they're not together. They walk in together, kind of, but they don't speak and they don't sit next to each other. They have the same swaggar and energy as $ugar and Bellamy. Wearing jeans and long shirts, they too, look pretty nondescript. They follow the same routine: sit down, pull out cell phones, check them, and order glasses of yak. I see one of them give a heads-up nod to Bellamy. Pimps.
"There go two more pimps!" I whisper shout to my friends. This time they don't laugh.
Curious, I continue to watch the guys. One of them, fair skinned with unkempt hair, (Redbone) gets a phone call. He walks to the other end of the bar and after a few seconds is clearly agitated. His face is twisted, his hands are moving emphatically, his brow is furrowed. He talks for a long time, about ten minutes, and hangs up. Redbone goes back to the bar and addresses his compatriot for the first time by showing him the phone. The compatriot nods. Redbone and compatriot finish their drinks. I'm facing and talking to my friend Donna, and the bar, so they are in my direct line of sight, but I'm no longer looking directly at them. Redbone and compatriot stand up to exit the bar. When they get ready to leave, they have to turn around in my direction.
Compatriot blows me a kiss.
A pimp blows me a kiss.
A. Pimp. Blows. Me. A. Kiss.
As the revelation hits me that a pimp is blowing me kisses, he also winks at me.
A pimp winks at me.
A. Pimp. Winks. At. Me.
I say to Donna, "A pimp just blew me a kiss."
"Girl! No he didn't!" she replied.
I'm rendered speechless. I see the pimps leave the bar.
About 20 seconds later, I'm talking to all my friends and I see their collective body language change. While the change is registering, I hear this incredibly smooth voice behind me, in my ear, "How you doin', beautiful?"
My brain shuffles through all the events of the night as I turn around to face the voice: HAM, the outft, $ugar, Bill Bellamy, the solicitation, the new guys.
A pimp is about three feet from my face, smiling.
His entire face is tattooed.
His. Entire. Face. Is. Tattooed.
I decide very quickly that it's probably a very bad idea to piss off a guy who tattooed his face with a picture of the state of New York around his eye, the word Giants scrawled across his cheek, and a skull-and-crossbones dallying on his forehead. And those are just the tats I remember.
So, I very nicely reply, "I'm well, thank you. How are you?" I mean, what do you say to a pimp with a tattooed face? Seriously. That's not in any of the manuals.
"I'm good. What's your name?" Tat asks with a voice as smooth as rich cream.
"Crystal." I reply.
"Oh, ok. I just moved here from Cali and bought a three bedroom house this weekend." Tat offers.
Tat is, at most, twenty-five years old.
"That's lovely," I reply "What do you do?" I ask.
"You know what I do," he says, while maintaining direct eye contact. This guy is not afraid of cold calling at all.
"No, I can't say I know what you do," I reply, "Let me guess, a little bit of this and a little bit of that?"
"Yeah..." his voice trails off, "I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I have some work to handle right now, how about I come back in a minute, buy you a drink, and we can talk about what I do," he responds.
"Ok, I might still be here," I reply, "but I have a flight to catch early in the morning, I live on the East Coast, far far far away from Vegas. I'm only here for a few more hours. Plus, you look really busy, your friend looks like he needs your help, we can talk later," I say, while trying to maintain a modicum of composure.
"That's ok, I'd still like to get with you. Have a good night beautiful" he says, and slithers off.
Stunned. We leave the bar. I decide that it's probably a very bad idea to wait for Tat and Redbone to reappear, looking for new recruits.
So, the next morning I tell this story to my mother. She laughs herself into tears. I'm offended. Between chuckles she says, "Well, Evelyn every pimp needs a bottom girl honey. Perhaps he saw you across the room and said to himself 'well, there's a girl with leadership skills. I need her on my team to keep my girls in line.'"
Thanks, mom.
Evelyn Parkside
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